Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.

Want to go further? Imagine if a small portion of the people who comment on this site voted on and decided to support financially the development of an application each month? It need not be a huge amount ($5), but it would make a difference in the life of many free software developers.

I would sign up to receive some of those donations.

But honestly, donations are hard work. You really need to promote that donation button and try to push your users to give you those five dollars. You're lucky if a small fraction of a percent actually does donate. Then, me being very much against begging for money and using ads doesn't make it any easier. Too bad the costs doesn't care about your ethics.

More people should donate to their favorite projects. Let that be your New Year's resolution: donate more money to your favorite free/open project (maybe Stoffi *caugh*).

Maybe Flattr is the way to go? Making it really easy to donate money. Anyone have any experience with that?